lunch money

Jafta is stoked on kindergarten so far. I’m actually a bit shocked at how little complaining there has been. One of his favorite things about school is the “hot lunch”. He loves everything about it . . . the greasy food, the compartmentalized plates, but especially the fact that he gets to take a wallet to school and buy it himself. It all makes him feel very grown-up and self important. We’ve been letting him get hot lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m not a huge fan because it’s not very healthy, but he really loves it so two times a week is the compromise. The first few days we sent him with $3 in change. Because we had no small cash (or any cash) on hand, we had to raid one of the children’s piggybanks. We sent him to school with 12 quarters in a Spiderman wallet. Last week we finally got our act together and sent him with three dollar bills. We failed to point this out to him before school. When he came home from school that day, he was very upset with us because he had not had any money to give to the ladies at lunch. And then we were like, um, YES WE DID. We sent money with you. And he was like, no you didn’t. And Mark pulls out the three bills that are still in his backpack and says, SEE!? And Jafta says, “I know. You only sent those dollars, but no money!” And suddenly we are playing a “who’s on first” game with Jafta because at five years old, he does not quite understand that paper bills are money, too. (This could be because, as referenced above, neither of us ever actually have cash on hand. I am the mom who tries to use my debit card at the school bake sale, and huffs out of the carwash for their “cash only” policy). We got that worked out, but I was so sick of trying to keep cash on hand that I went online and pre-paid for his lunches. Oy vey. Now Jafta was even more stressed out. I tried so hard to explain that I PAID FOR HIS LUNCH THROUGH MY COMPUTER. But even as I heard the words coming out of my mouth, it sounded insane. Jafta was so worried about whether or not this would work, and how the lunch ladies would know that I had already paid. We finally agreed, on Jafta’s request, to write an affidavit of payment that he could carry and present to the lunch ladies at proof. Which he did, Tomorrow is Thursday. He is pre-paid for what sounds like a lovely breaded chicken sandwich on white bread. And he has insisted that we write another note for him, even though I’ve paid online. I wonder how long we’ll need to do this? (Knowing Jafta, all year long). Oh, my sweet neurotic son. You can argue all you want about nature vs nurture, but I know this much is true: that boy is ALL ME.